The IT sector continues to be one of the areas in which Scotland offers a large and skilled workforce.
We spoke to David Heffron, a Scottish IT consultant who has spent the last four years working in London. Having made the decision to return to Scotland, we found out more about how the two experiences of IT jobs in Glasgow and the UK capital compare and, more generally, about what his role involves and how he sees the sector evolving. 
You’ve recently returned to Scotland after a few years working in London, how does the match up of wage and living costs in London compare to Scotland?
4 years ago [When David moved to London] the increase in my pay more or less covered the increase in rent I was paying. It’s really the only major jump in costs I experienced. In the last 6 months however, it’s become a total joke and it’s the main reason I’ve moved back to Glasgow. I realised that unless I won the lottery or married into money I was never going to be able to afford to move out of shared accommodation. I was reasonably well paid, so I’ve no idea how a cleaner or a shop worker can afford to live there and have any disposable income. There was a headline in the Evening Standard reporting that the average house price had increased by £50,000 in the last year. London’s in danger of collapsing under its own weight.
Do you feel that the differing job markets of London and Scotland suit people at different stages of their life?
Hard to say. It very much depends on what industry you’re working for. When I first started out I was part of the in-house IT department for a fund management company then later a major UK insurance company. I had almost no IT experience when I started and they really allowed me to bring myself up to speed very quickly. Increasingly, I’m seeing more and more positions advertised for outsourced IT companies as other firms look to make savings. As a result, there are less opportunities like the ones I had when starting out. The one thing that really helped me was working with clients on smaller budgets in Edinburgh, as it forces you to be creative. When you’ve got thousands to spend on the correct hardware and software, it’s easier. When all you’ve got in the budget is for string and glue, you have to think a bit. I see myself very much as a MacGyver of IT but without the mullet.
While in Scotland, you’ve worked in both Edinburgh and Glasgow, do you find any great distinction between IT jobs and opportunities in the two cities?
The two cities are very similar. Ultimately I’m providing an identical service – fixing the computer – that’s the same in Edinburgh, Glasgow, London or Rio. I’m mostly insulated from the intricacies of the company I’m working for. They’re all using Windows for the desktop, they’re all (or mostly) using Exchange for email. It’s the company that needs to understand the local market much more than I do.
IT people often despair of the things the less technically savvy among us may ask for help with. Have there been any support requests that you’ve found particularly frustrating?
My most recent one was with a client who had three monitors on his PC so that he could track Bloomberg financial data. Bloomberg licences are very expensive, so he wanted an office junior to occasionally access his Bloomberg as well. As a result, he wanted a second mouse and keyboard installed on the PC so that the junior could work the terminal while he looked at his email. At first I thought I was being stupid and he wanted something else. When I realised that was actually what he was asking for, I struggled to explain the dozen ways that wouldn’t work – and that he’d need a second PC. Yet he kept implying that somehow, I was to blame for this not being a workable solution. I don’t work for Microsoft, I just implement their products.
IT is an ever-evolving sector but do you think the job market itself is set for any radical changes over the next decade?
There will definitely be more and more outsourcing of the IT function to 3rd parties and, as a result, the opportunities for a jack-of-all-trades IT person like myself will start to shrink. You’ll be looking after a dozen or so clients and you’ll be the mail server expert looking exclusively at a dozen mail servers. A lot of back-end work is increasingly being sent abroad but the client-facing aspects will always need to be partly local. Remote support of your PC only goes so far. After all, when your PC won’t switch on, you’ll need me nearby to come over and point out that you don’t have it plugged into the mains(!)
Thank you to David for speaking to us. At s1jobs we’re committed to promoting the Scottish jobs market and reminding talented people that they don’t need to go to London to find the right opportunity. Having s1homes as our sister site also means that we’re uniquely placed to see the full picture for job hunters and be able to consider how wages will match up with living costs. Set against the London working experience, we believe that jobs in Glasgow and wider Scotland offer just as much for skilled people looking to build a career in IT and other sectors.
Photograph supplied by interviewee.